House Crashing: Joyful & Happy Go Lucky

Can you believe it has been a month since our last house crashing adventure? And while February’s house tour was from across the pond, this one was local, so we got to stop by and soak up all of the details in person.

Meet Becky and Brian (and their dog Fergie). They live just outside of Richmond with their two daughters and this charming red door. It’s Heritage Red by Benjamin Moore – and she got that charming “Hello” decal here.

When you walk inside, there’s a room to your right that they call the music room. Let’s just say that the yellow piano, which Becky painted herself, had my heart immediately. It was Brian’s grandma’s piano that was passed down to their family (here’s a link to Becky’s post about painting it). Becky also found the swivel stool at an antique store and made the slipcover herself. It was such a fun house to walk through because so many things had a secondhand story or a handmade touch.

Her dresser-turned-bathroom-vanity was another example of Becky and Brian putting their stamp on their home. She got it at a local secondhand shop, painted it and distressed it, and then her dad and Brian cut out the middle and added a recycled sink basin (picked up from the Habitat For Humanity ReStore). Becky also loves to collect old mirrors to hang in groupings on the wall, so she always has an eye out for them at thrift & antique shops.

There’s a first floor guest room which had such a cheerful vibe, even with those moody walls (they’re Gravel Gray by Benjamin Moore). The playful rooster art was a $30 find at the Yankee Candle Store in Williamsburg.

The pretty bedding is a Bed Bath & Beyond find, and the dresser is another secondhand score that Becky painted herself. She also distressed it with a palm sander and filled in the distressed areas with Walnut oil or glaze – and added those cute numbers for each drawer (found at a craft store).

Becky worked in some more personal touches in the kitchen, like a panel of chalkboard paint on the pantry door, and by painting the stools that she got from Ikea red with a homemade chalk paint recipe that she found online.

The master bedroom was a really soft and sweet space. The floral coverlet on their bed is a $20 Rosebowl Flea market purchase from Pasadena, CA. I loved that Brian didn’t mind pink in the bedroom, and the mixture of the wooden bed (from Pier 1) and the pine bench at the foot of the bed (from HomeGoods) was interesting to me (instead of pairing it with painted or distressed wood). Becky doesn’t remember the color on the walls, but Palladian Blue or Quiet Moments by Benjamin Moore might be close.

This homemade jewelry rack is another example of Becky’s ability to see something and reimagine it. She got it at the Junk Bonanza Flea Market in Shakopee, Minnesota as an old crib railing, initially thinking that she’d hang magazines or blankets from it, but it turned out to be perfect for her jewelry.

Her daughter’s room has more feminine touches and the sweetest secondhand hutch that Becky also found in Minnesota. It even came that color so she didn’t do a thing to it.

But possibly the coolest spot in the whole house is Becky’s basement studio. She runs an Etsy shop called Farmgirl Paints, where she sells stamped leather cuffs made from secondhand belts (no wonder she has so many thrift store finds, right? She’s always patrolling for belts) – and everything happens down in her basement studio.

The green wall along the back of the studio is chalkboard paint that Becky had mixed up at Lowe’s in “Spring Green” and she got the shop sign made by American Vintage Inc (she sent her an inspiration picture with reclaimed wood, metal sides, and frosted bulbs and this is the end result).

There were so many creative details in this basement to document. Like this cool twine Farmgirl Paints sign that Becky made – and even posted a little flipagram tutorial on Instagram.

There were a lot of work stations for various shop jobs (making the leather bands, stamping the metal disks that go on them, adding snaps, billing, packing, etc). It was such a fun work environment thanks to all of the color and the playful wall decor. How cool is that old “humble” sign Becky found?

She also mixed in some big box finds, but the funny thing is that I assumed everything was thrifted or homemade due to all of her other pieces. So it shocked the heck out of me when she said this numbered wall cubby was from Target a while back.

There’s also a room that’s tucked away in the very back of the basement that Becky calls her art studio. To make the desk, she and her husband dug through an awesome old salvage yard here in Richmond called Govenor’s Antiques. The owner helped them pick out the perfect doors (there are two of them, joined in the middle, braced along the back wall, and further supported by two legs that they made out of spindles on each end). It’s 13′ long and full of crafting supplies. I was like a kid in a candy store.

That green lamp has a great story too. Becky was antiquing in Charlottesville, Virginia and I fell in love with that HUGE barn light, which was hanging right over the checkout counter in a small shop. So she sweet talked the owner into selling it to her.

Possibly my favorite organizational coup of all was this old school display case made of wire that Becky picked up at The Screen Door antique shop in Asheville, North Carolina. She bought it without having any clue what she’d do with it, but soon realized that all of her little tubes of craft paint fit perfectly. And how cute is the chalkboard camper that Becky drew on the chalkboard wall behind it?

We want to send a HUGE thanks to Becky and Brian for so graciously inviting us into their joy-filled home and allowing us to snap photos to share with the interwebs. You can read more about her life/shop/house over on her blog, but first I’d love to hear what your favorite parts were, or what has you inspired (her whole house made me want to thrift like crazy). Between the decal on that shiny red front door, the yellow piano, and her tricked out basement studio, it’s hard to even pick a favorite.

I LOVE their green overhead barn light! Great sweet talking skills, Becky!:-). The pops of colors throughout their home are fun and refreshing. I would agree that their bedroom paint color could be BM Palladian Blue. It is one of the colors I am toying with painting in my bathroom makeover. It a great blue color with LOTS of green undertones.

Would you ever consider a post on putting a bedroom together that touches on mixing woods or similar but different fabrics? We have a bedroom with a sitting area and are struggling to figure out what to do with the bench at the end of the bed (a necessity for our dogs to get up on the bed). I love their solution but have no idea how to pull off the “matching but not too matching” look that this house has.

That could be a fun post! My first thoughts would be to grab some different options for pillows and throws from a place like HomeGoods and have a little “bed fashion show” to see what mix you like. You can take pictures of each setup to remember/compare them, and return the ones you don’t like. You also can search sites like Pinterest or Houzz to find mixes/color palettes/looks that you like and draw inspiration from them as well.

Becky, your house is so inspirational! When I got to the part about your leather belts turned Etsy cuff bracelets I thought it sounded very familiar. Perhaps you’ve been into my consignment shop in Charlottesville? I remember someone coming in looking for old leather belts for that purpose. Regardless, if you ever find yourself in Charlottesville, pop on in! If you get in touch in advance I can try to put some aside for you that you might like. :)